GA-MA770T-UD3P : Questions on VRM / OC / Speedfan & Bios

I acquired the above mentioned mobo more or less one month ago - all I can say is that I'm impressed with its features, it corresponds exactly to what I was looking for. Along with it I’m using a Phenom II X3 BE / Kingston DDR3 1600 & aftermarket Zigmatech Achilles cooler.

I’m planning to OC it a bit and I’ve been playing a little bit around already. I’ve been documenting myself properly as I’m a complete newbie to OC...I don’t want to muck up anything on my new build

The cpu allows to increase the multiplier in order to obtain more cpu speed (that’s the “cheap” way of OC). I rather will increase the reference clock of the mobo to obtain an overall gain on cpu, northbridge, HT and RAM. Isolating each component from each other in the process will get me to an ideal state of OC, it probably will take longer and it can be tedious... but I’m pretty sure that I’ll obtain more benefit from it. Ok, so far so good...this was just an intro – lol!

Now let’s move forward to my doubts...

1. VRM Gigabyte mentions on its website “We recommend that you enhance heat dissipation for the CPU VRM area if an AMD Black Edition CPU is installed and the Advanced Clock Calibration is enabled.” I will probably enable this function to unlock also the 4th core (if I’m lucky) – so I bought some nice copper heatsinks for Mosfets from Enzotech. If you look at the picture of the UD3P, I placed a red square around what I think are the VRM’s (just above the AM3 socket)...is this correct? 20 of those mini-heatsinks in total placed in there? I know...really noob question....

2. OC 3 cores first As mentioned before, I’ll try to unlock the 4th core of the cpu (through ACC), but would you rather first try to achieve a stable OC on three cores and then try it with the 4th one - a success unlocking the 4th one is not guaranteed though, it’s just luck. If it does not work (unlocking the 4th core) I just hope to be able to get back to three

3. BIOS & FanspeedIt is recommended to disable in Bios (Cool ‘n’quiet, C1E, Spread Spectrum , Smart CPU Fan control ) and to manually set Memory Timings. Doing so will bring your system fans to work at 100% all the time. I only got two fans connected to the mobo, a blower for my graphic card (sideways) and the cpu fan (Achilles), all other fans are connected to my psu which regulates them upon load (so no issues with these). However, having those two fans mentioned above at 100% all the time is not something that I like too much...Would you know if there is a way in the Bios to modify the Fanspeed to not have it at full throttle 7/11 ? I’d rather have it at 80% or something like that, which I think is enough to have the system cooled in an OC-Status. Maybe a software can do this?

Sorry for writing so much...it seems that I can’t stop once started....

Thank you again for reading me and a big gracias in advance for anyone that helps me solving these little doubts....

Even if you do unlock all 4 cores you may not be able to go as high (mhz wise) as you could with 2 or 3. This is becuase heat becomes more of an issue the more cores you have. If you were purely gaming with the machine then higher clock speed is more important (as a rule)

I am not sure about fan speed etc, I just have mine running 100% you could possibly get a fan controller, or even some quiet fans?

I'll keep that in mind about the 4th core...what "worries" me most is to be able to revert back to 3 cores if you are not satisfied with 4 though

About the fan, well, the Achilles fan is pretty new, and it is silent, also the psu one is...I just don't want to give it full load all the time. If the Bios can't do it, than I probably will need as you said a rehobus or some kind of "voltage diminisher" for the Achilles cooler fan. I still have from my Noctua fans the ULNA and LNA's (Ultra & Low Noise Adaptors)...but I think that I should not use them for the cpu fan...something tells me that this could be risky